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You recycle stuff, you gave up on the single use bags, you have your coffee in a mug that you take to your favorite hipster coffee shop. And yet doing all of this stuff is not really helping. And the reason is we are all thinking about this the wrong way round.

Try this instead:

So stop thinking about how you’re going to recycle all of the shit that manufacturers want you to take home.

When you shop think about the packaging you are being presented with, look for the product with the least packaging or the purest packaging (no mixed paper plastic composites)

Buy loose rather than in a bag. And put them directly in your own bag, don’t use the flimsy clear plastic ones they hand out on a roll.

Don’t shop in places that only offer plastic bags, like M&S, even Primark manage to offer paper bags for goodness sake

Using these rules, there is a chance that you will reduce the flow of plastic through your home. And those manufacturers that over-package will realise that they have to change.

If you want to be really radical about this recycling, take the packaging back to the store you bought it from. It worked in Germany in the 90’s when consumers did it on mass and the supermarkets had to change. Tell them I sent you!

In 2016 CQC thought that the “Days of single-handed GPs are over“. Well, there seem to be plenty of them still around. It just shows you that the NHS is very slow to change, and that’s not a good thing. There is no clear advice on how to choose the best kind of practice, here is the NHS’s advice. It’s very clear on the how, but no information on the criteria for making a choice.

I see that FastCompany has one of their exec lists out. I’m sure that these lists are rubbish, but they can be hilarious, imagine doing all of the things on the list in the belief that they will make your more productive. So here’s the latest list. I particularly hate the idea only travelling with your sports gear on business trips and having your business attire posted by FedEx. This one falls foul of my rule #2, never be separated from your kit.

I recently asked my Doctor what humans should eat? She thought a little and then said, “You know, I have no idea.” She could tell me all of the things I should not eat but had not thought of it as a species question. So, a little research later and apparently, humans are adapted to eat a palaeolithic diet.

How hard can that be? Well if you know how to select food, prepare and cook it, then it’s not too hard. I was lucky my Mum was a home economics teacher, back in the day local education authorities in the UK thought that students should know how to cook and look after themselves. Luckily no one needs to know how to do that these days because it’s been outsourced to big business. My mum was not so sure, so she taught us how to cook and manage a home.

So, I now have my pointy stick plus a sack, and I hunt in the fresh food aisles of my local hunting ground. In my case it’s called Asda, I tried Waitrose, but didn’t like the other animals hunting there. However, that’s another story.

Scott Galloway – weekly “Winners and Losers in a Digital Age” series hosted by L2 Founder Scott Galloway and released each Thursday, but you will have to wait until term starts! There is the season’s finale

No doubt you will have read with interest the difficulties Mr Corbyn finds himself in over the Labour Party failing to be clear on anti-semitism.

I can see why the Labour party would like to pick and choose elements of the definition. But the best is nearly always the enemy of the good, but in some cases leaders just have to make the tough decision and choose the hard road.

In the case of Mr Corbyn he tried to have it all ways, adopt some of the elements but not others to allow the Party to continue to criticise Israel. And in taking this middle ground, he ended up taking no ground at all.

Mr Corbyn in trying to be flexible, not upset one part of his Party managed to create a much larger issue. Failing to lead always has consequences but being a partial leader, not taking to the moral high ground and mincing your words in the hope that things will turn out OK is never a good idea.

Good leaders aren’t nice, neither are they ruthless, good leaders understand the context of their leadership, they lead for the many, not the few, to quote the Labour Parties 2018 slogan.

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About John Coulthard

If you’re sure about something, you can guarantee that someone else not very far away will be sure about the opposite. Our views and opinions are a product of our cultural conditioning. Sometimes the effect of failing to take a broader perspective is benign, but more often in doing so, you exclude, underestimate or marginalise whole segments of society. I aim to try to see the gaps in provision, challenge the assumptions and perhaps provide a broad angle view of my small part of the world.